Not a review per se, but a head’s up. As regular readers will know, I have a tendency to bang on (and on) about the wonderful Mervyn Stone novels by Nev Fountain. Well, to help launch the paperbacks, there’s going to be a new short story available. And it’s appearing via Twitter.

To get the story, which starts tweeting on April 1st, then you need to follow @mervynstone on the social networking site. There are ways of reading the archive without signing up – pretty sure you can find it once it’s started by a general internet search.

Anyway, here’s the synopsis:

Mervyn Stone wakes up beside a corpse. The corpse used to be noted memorabilia collector Alistair McGuffin, who has been bludgeoned to death by an autograph. The autograph is a rare signed photo, encased in perspex to keep it mint… and it’s in Mervyn’s hand.

Mervyn tells the police he was only there to retrieve his chelsea boots… and then the boots turn up.

Beside the bodies of two more collectors, also killed that night.

At this point, Mervyn works out he’s in a spot of bother.

Can Mervyn clear his name? And will he ever get his chelsea boots back?

Hopefully this will inspire people to pick up the books when they are released soon. They really are the best new mysteries (fairly clued, completely unfathomable, totally logical and loads of fun in the bargain) in a long, long while. Check out the spoiler-free reviews here, here and here. And enjoy the tweeting.